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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what the scariest thing ever to happen to you abroad was?

221 replies

RainbowBriteUk · 13/09/2021 16:49

Mine was unknowingly walking in to a cafe where only men where allowed in the Balkans and they just all stared. Some quite icily. I just turned on my heel and walked out!

OP posts:
GoWalkabout · 13/09/2021 21:33

We decided to save money by using a car park in the outskirts of Paris when visiting, that had been recommended on Internet forums. It turned out to be in one of the areas where preachers were/are still openly holding prayers on the street against new government laws and often with their own private security guards and counter protests happening. I don't honestly know what was going on when we walked back to the car with our two little daughters but the streets were heaving, it was a heatwave, the atmosphere was like a pressure cooker, there were loads of bits of clothing all strewn in the gutters. Then somehow we ended up directly in the middle of a fist fight that started between two groups. It literally started across us. No one was remotely interested in us so we just walked away. The security guard from the car park just looked at us like what the hell are you doing in this area. We might not penny pinch so much next time. If I am honest though it was a fascinating view into Paris life.

MadisonAvenue · 13/09/2021 21:46

We went to Lanzarote in 1993, and arrived at the apartment quite late after delays so locked the door behind us, put our bags in the bedroom (although we put our passports, wallet, purse and cash in the room safe) and went to bed.
When we woke the following morning our carry on bags were gone from where we’d left them at the side of the bed.

We then discovered that the patio door lock had been forced, as had the one at the adjoining apartment and they’d also had items stolen.

It was horrible to think that the burglar had been in the bedroom while we were sleeping, I’m just glad that neither of us woke while they were in there. As it was we lost things like Walkmans, loads of cassettes, books, a camera, prescription medications.

MolkosTeenageAngst · 13/09/2021 21:49

Being locked in a hotel room and raped.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 13/09/2021 21:54

Taxi / tuk tuk driver in Thailand nearly stabbed a drunk exh for paying him the wrong amount (due to being drunk) - someone exhs fault but still scary!

Also a tramp in France who turned out to be American threatened to set his dog on me because I was scared of the dog.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 13/09/2021 21:55

@MolkosTeenageAngst

I’m so sorry

desperate4spring · 13/09/2021 22:05

Dd had a horrid head injury by the pool. The bump is still visible 4 years later 😩

Mouikey · 13/09/2021 22:35

Shark phobic so very brave to swim in the waters around Australia. Thought it was my imagination but huge black tipped reef shark decided to swim very close by. Phobia went up a few notches after that encounter.

Not the worst thing (that’s above) but the expectation to eat fugu in Japan… was shite scarred having watched the simpsons episode! However it tasted like chicken nuggets and no ill effects!

Itsnotallaboutyoubaby · 13/09/2021 23:27

Morocco.

I was seven months pregnant. The hotel picked us up from the airport but took us to a different hotel because they said the one we were booked for was oversubscribed.

Turned out it was legit but because we called the travel company (who didn’t know) the riad staff got very shitty with us (me and DH).

We just didn’t want to be presented with a bill at the end of our stay or abducted. They couldn’t see it from our point of view and believed we should’ve just taken them at their word.

Kara198 · 13/09/2021 23:48

The resort me and my dh went to in Turkey was bombed.

Longdistance · 13/09/2021 23:54

I was in an earthquake in Turkey in 1999, it was 7.6 on the Richter scale. I was 15 storeys up in the hotel. Ran to the doorway and waited for it to be over. We ran down the stairs after and sat on sun loungers til the morning. The water had spit out of the pool. There were quite heavy after tremours through the night.

Myusernameisnotmyusernameno · 13/09/2021 23:56

I was in Vietnam and went to buy water. Took a wrong turning in the dark and was utterly lost with no phone signal.

TheHouseIsOnFire · 14/09/2021 00:02

Got roofied by a guy in a bar while working in Tenerife. No idea what happened next as I blacked out - thankfully I guess - so sorry for what happened to you Molko. Needless to say I quit my job and came home asap.

Shelbot · 14/09/2021 00:36

In Turkey on holiday with a friend. Swimming in the sea during an excusion. Was out of my depth but I'm a decent enough swimmer. Turkish guy, must have been in his 60s, grabs me in the water. Hands all over me, groping me and I couldn't get away as had no ground to kick off. Finally managed but just felt so helpless at the time as I couldn't get enough balance since he was holding onto me. He was laughing the whole time, his friend laughed too.

penguin23 · 14/09/2021 00:48

Parents took me and my sister to Amsterdam to visit a friend of theirs who’d just moved there to live with his Dutch partner, I was 11 at the time. Went to see them in their top floor flat, my dad and his friend decided to get some food from the shop round the corner and I go with them. We head back to the flat after when the friend decides he wants to go somewhere else, I wanted to go back to my mum. Friend presses buzzer on the flat and the door opens, so I head in and start walking up to the top floor. I was greeted by an angry man yelling at me in Dutch, clearly I was in the wrong block of flats. Ran back down to the street, dad and friend long gone. Sat on the kerb crying, all the flats looked the same all up and down the street, and the surrounding streets. Somehow I managed to compose myself and start thinking what to do. Had the idea to try the next door along, pressed the top buzzer and the door opened, I carefully went up to the top to thankfully find my mum, cue hysterical tears and my mum absolutely fuming at my dad for just leaving me without checking. Friend had only been living there a couple weeks and kept getting those two doors mixed up!

merrymelody · 14/09/2021 00:59

My mum and I were given rohypnol in tea whilst visiting a shop in Bangkok. We ended up spending £££££ on jewellery (which fortunately wasn't fake) with my mum's credit card. This was a common scam at the time (early 90s). We were able to resell the jewellery once back at home but at a loss.

Pesimistic · 14/09/2021 01:02

Oh god I'm going there next year Shock

TonkinLenkicks · 14/09/2021 01:18

I was followed by the french version of the while van man. I am absolutely sure that if it wasn’t for my quick thinking something really bad would have happened to me.

Mintjulia · 14/09/2021 01:40

I was out for a meal with a work group in South Africa (with a local who we trusted to know what was safe) and we got mugged by a group of youths. One of them had a handgun and opened fire. We all scattered and eventually made it back to the hotel.

The local said it wasn't worth reporting 'because we were all still alive'.

It was enough tp put me off South Africa for good.

user1473878824 · 14/09/2021 01:55

@thetaleunfolds

A few weeks after I moved to the US at 18 I walked into a gas station, alone, at 1am to pay and found the attendant tied up at gunpoint while the store was robbed.
Think this might beat you OP.
TheLoverOfTea · 14/09/2021 02:03

Got mugged in Sri Lanka whilst on holiday with all of our holiday money taken. Police weren't interested in the slightest.

CanIPleaseHaveOne · 14/09/2021 02:03

@rooarsome

Morocco- -Assaulted by a man in a store as I did not wish to buy a lantern. He pressed it into my hands and when I politely declined he slapped me across the face. My husband moved to intervene but the shop keeper and another in the stall opposite brought out knives. Luckily we were with a tour guide who got us away safely.

-We were walking back from a restaurant (after witnessing a man being battered with a metal menu stand and the police taking a bribe to walk away), when a man approached us with a little girl, no more than 8. He offered her to my husband for the night.

Safe to say I will never return to that country.

I had terrible experiences in Morocco too, and you are the first person to ever validate that! Most people say how marvellous it is - it has a nasty side that makes me shiver.
Yaya26 · 14/09/2021 02:27

When I was about 15 I went with my Mum on a coach tour of Europe - UK Firm. I remember sometimes we'd be travelling late at night down motorways. I could see the drivers reflection in the windscreen and he often struggled to stay awake. His eyes kept closing and then his head would jerk up as he fought sleep - Crazy.

WatchMyChops · 14/09/2021 02:29

@SpongebobNoPants

I was kidnapped in Tunisia as a toddler. I don’t remember much but I'm lucky I was found when I was or my life could have ended up very different
Shock

I’m glad you were found. What happened?

faithfulbird20 · 14/09/2021 02:31

Being groped as a 6 year old in a market. Also remember nearly got sexually abused as a 3 year old visiting relatives.

CanIPleaseHaveOne · 14/09/2021 02:48

Some of you have suffered in the most appaling way and I am so very sorry that you have to carry that with you. FlowersFlowers.
Mine was in Zanzibar. My (male) cousin and I went to a gig in Stone Town. It was outdoors in a huge walled area. After a while it dawned on me that there were no women present, that the smell of weed was very intense, and we stood out like sore thumbs. We chatted for a bit to a young American chap who was working as an English teacher, and went home early.
The next day we bumped into him again but he was in a very distressed state. He told us he had been gang raped on his way home.
I will never, ever forget him. Sometimes I can see in my mind his anguished face and it makes me cry, 20 years on.
I got an early flight home.